Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Even It Up

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

Giants square the series with the Cubs behind another strong start from Tim Hudson (Game Score 70). Throw in some clutch hitting (two two-out run-scoring hits) with some superb infield defense (B-Craw!) and the San Francisco home formula delivers another win. The local lads up their record at AT&T to 18-9 which is just behind the 20-8 Marlins and 16-7 Rockies and just ahead of the 15-8 Cardinals. Win big at home and break even on the road usually works. The Giants are 15-10 in away games so far and that's a good thing as it looks like the race in the West will be a tight one.Tim Lincecum goes tomorrow afternoon. It's the team's 54th game, one-third of the season. I'll throw out a few "third inning" thoughts after JC's post.

Keep it rolling, Giants!

--M.C.

p.s. Correction: the Giants play Game 54 on Thursday against the Cardinals. Game 48 was suspended!

3 comments:

I wasn't sure how good Hudson would be considering the injury he had last year, but he's been just wonderful. A lot has been written about the Giants' surprisingly potent offense, and rightly so, but now we're starting to see stronger and stronger pitching performances. If we can keep this momentum up it could certainly be another special year.

While Hudson's injury was severe, I was buoyed by three things. First off, the guy is such a professional, if there was a strong chance that he won't be able to pitch the way he is accustomed to, he would have hung it up than steal a team's money. Second, Petit had been money for us in 2012-13, and I felt that Lincecum and VOgelsong, as poorly as they did, would be fine as 3/4 in our rotation, making Petit the perfect #5 starter. Pitching would not have been as much of an advantage, but it would still be up there with BUmgarner and Cain. Third, Hudson has been amazingly consistent all through his career, even last year which seems like a down year, his FIP was in line with his career so he had bad luck there as well as with the ankle, so as long as he was healthy, I expected another great season out of him, and he has not only delivered, but exceeded expectations.

He has mentioned his better command of his pitches. I would attribute that to his extended rest for his arm last season, after the injury. So I would watch out for later in this season or sometime next season, when his arm does not have as much rest.

On top of that, his salary was not that much, basically priced to his ERA plus a decline for being older, which would put him around average for the majors, or 2.0 WAR. As long as he is healthy, he should easily earn his salary for us, and should deliver additional value on top of that.

I think that most of the articles written about the Giants offense has missed the point. The Giants might have had a poor offense last season, but that was because of injuries that lingered through most of the lineup, any team hindered like that will have a poor offense.

My analysis found that when the lineup was healthy - April, May, Sept - they had a very good offense, and thus had a good winning record during those three months: they were on 90 win pace (45-36). Add on top of that a healthy Mike Morse, and you have an improved offense. My lineup analysis had them producing around 4.3-4.5 runs per game and they are currently at 4.21, which accounts for the fact that the lineup analysis does not take into account the bench playing a certain percentage of the time, the 4.3-4.5 was the potential when the full lineup was in.